I have a new job at Britely

I’m thrilled to announce my new position at an exciting Silicon Valley startup called Britely, where I am now Director of Growth & Creativity. We’re a well-funded, fast-moving new kind of user generated content site and app. I’m heading up content strategy, distribution, growth hacking, user acquisition, product marketing, and social media strategy… I love my job and the team here is top notch. My favorite part of my job is helping shape a super creative, positive culture of creators on britely.com.

Big Changes

Image

I wanted to announce a few big changes in my life of late.

LON–>SFO

I’ve moved back to San Francisco to be closer to family and the amazing pulse of California life that I know and love.

ACADEMIA–>INDUSTRY

I am now on indefinite leave from the tenure track at the London School of Economics. We are still working out the details, but I hope to keep working with the Department of Management in some capacity while I’m away, perhaps still teaching on some executive programs like our new Global MiM and the Executive Summer School.

I am also looking for ways to continue “teaching” here in the Bay Area, whether in a classroom or as an innovation coach like I did with Haas@Work. (If you have a need for a facilitator or guest speaker, I’d love to hear from you.)

KICKING ASS & TAKING NAMES!

I’m thrilled to get to focus on the design strategy work I love so much – I’m officially on the job market. (I’m having so much fun visiting friends of friends at SF’s most exciting design firms. Keep the leads coming!)

I am also getting to dedicate more time on my freelance organizational consulting practice, Kickass Creative. I have been involved in some very innovative projects lately, applying behavioral and social psychology research to making things and solving business problems through design (like at Nutmeg, an exciting financial startup I advise in the UK).

I’M STILL UP IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING….

…but for different reasons than before. I’m a proud new mom of a delightful baby boy, born in London this past August!  I miss London (and going out) but couldn’t be happier to get to glimpse the world through my precious baby’s eyes. Going to bed early is the new sleeping in!

That’s the gist of it. I’ll keep you updated as my plans evolve…  in the meantime, if you’re in the Bay Area I’d love to hear from you!  – Caneel 🙂

Where Good Ideas Come From

Steven Berlin Johnson at South by Southwest in...
Steven Berlin Johnson at SXSW 2008 (via Wikipedia)

On November 2nd I will be chairing a free event in London about creativity and innovation.  Steven Johnson, best-selling nonfiction author of Mind Wide Open and Everything Bad is Good for You will be presenting his latest book, Where Good Ideas Come From: A Natural History of Innovation.

I am super excited to meet Steven Johnson, whose writings have inspired my own thinking about how technology is shaping the future of human creativity. He’s been one of my modern intellectual role models since I read his 2005 post and New York Times Book Review essay about how he uses DevonThink to mine his past creative ideas and prior research and to write books (more on that below*). I love the sophisticated and far-reaching way that SBJ analyzes and predicts how emerging tools, innovations, and trends will impact human behavior. Continue reading “Where Good Ideas Come From”

Creative Current at Future Human Salon

Creativity gets people riled up. That was one thing I learned as a panelist at “Creative Current,” the topic of Wednesday night’s Future Human salon, run by Bad Idea magazine and held at The Book Club in my lovely neighborhood of Shoreditch.  The other panelists included Paul Epworth (2010 Brit Awards’ Music Producer of the Year, of Bloc Party / Florence / Plan B fame) and Tiger Savage (former Creative Director at M&C Saatchi, recent creator of Tigers Eye consulting). Continue reading “Creative Current at Future Human Salon”

We Three Haas OB PhDs in London

The Summer issue of CalBusiness, the alumni magazine for the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, just came out. It features a profile of myself, Margaret Ormiston (Asst Prof at the London Business School), and Connson Locke (Asst Prof at the London School of Economics with me).  The article is about Continue reading “We Three Haas OB PhDs in London”

My interview in BAD IDEA magazine: Marxist coffee mugs, trapped by an open mind, etc.

One cold night a few weeks ago I met Ben Beaumont-Thomas in a hip, low-key cafe down an alley and behind an indie theatre in London’s Dalston. (ICYDN, Dalston = the new Shoreditch, chic tragique.)  Continue reading “My interview in BAD IDEA magazine: Marxist coffee mugs, trapped by an open mind, etc.”